The Partisan Divide on Ebola Preparedness

By Brendan Nyhan

Oct. 16, 2014

After a second case of Ebola was discovered among the staff of a Dallas hospital that treated an infected patient, public concerns are likely to increase about whether the United States health care system can properly respond to an outbreak.

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A scene from a training course on Ebola preparedness. The three-day course, operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and held at an old Army base in Anniston, Ala., will provide instruction to about 40 health care workers a week through January.CreditTami Chappell/Reuters

Data from surveys suggest, however, that those views — like so many others — are being shaped by people’s partisan affilations as much as by news about the outbreak itself.

According to a new ABC News/Washington Post survey, only 54 percent of Republicans are confident in the federal government’s ability to respond effectively to Ebola — far fewer than the 76 percent of Democrats who expressed confidence. This finding represents a striking reversal from the partisan divide found in a question about a potential avian influenza outbreak in 2006, when a Republican, George W. Bush, was president. An ABC/Post poll taken at the time found that 72 percent of Republicans were confident in an effective federal response compared with only 52 percent of Democrats.

The partisan divide also appears to have grown as Republican disapproval of President Obama has deepened. During the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic in 2009, the first year of Mr. Obama’s presidency, 81 percent of Democrats were confident in the federal government response to the disease compared with 70 percent of Republicans — a narrower margin than we observe during the current outbreak.

These findings illustrate how people use simple partisan heuristics to make judgments about future government performance. Few people know about how the federal government responds to disease epidemics, but most people have views about President Obama and the job he is doing in office. That’s why Democrats are more confident in government’s capacity for an effective response than they were in 2006, for example, not because they approve of how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is being managed.

Personal worry about Ebola shows partisan differences as well, though smaller. When asked about the possibility that they or an immediate family member might catch the Ebola virus, 47 percent of Republicans said they were worried, compared to 39 percent of Democrats.

Given these patterns, fears about the Ebola response will continue to be disproportionately concentrated among Republicans — the partisans who are likely to be most receptive to criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of the issue. But if President Marco Rubio or Chris Christie takes over, look for Democrats to be the ones doubting the government again during the next big outbreak.